


a love worthy of the stars themselves

by Cxnfiscated



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Astronomy, Day 4: Hogwarts, Falling In Love, Klance AU Month 2019, M/M, Pining Lance (Voltron), Smitten Lance (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 20:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17669906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cxnfiscated/pseuds/Cxnfiscated
Summary: . It was somehow fitting that an admirer of the universe would have eyes that contained the universe itself.





	a love worthy of the stars themselves

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4: Hogwarts

_ Vanurian - The Lover of Stars: _

_ Said to have fallen in love with the night sky. Despaired at the thought that he couldn’t have even one of them and drowned himself in the Red Sea. _

 

**_i._ **

Seating arrangements held too much power. Even at Hogwarts, a school full of magic, where the walls kept secrets a thousand years old, where mirrors would fix themselves and staircases would move as if pulled on by divine strings, it was a seating arrangement that reshaped his life.

 

Lance frowned when he saw that his usual seat was already taken by someone else, nothing more than a nameless face. He pondered about whether or not he should walk up to her and ask her to move but his ears were still ringing from Iverson’s yelling during defence class ─ 

 

_ I can’t believe someone like you gets to study at Hogwarts. _

_ That makes two of us, Sir. _

 

He shuddered at the thought of a nothing confrontation his mind drawing up all different kinds of harsh words she could throw back at him, so he ─ always running his mouth ─ decided for once that  _ not  _ speaking would be the better option. 

 

He turned towards the back of the room and walked over to the only free chair in the room. It was next to a boy he hadn’t talked to up until now. That didn’t have to mean anything, though. Lance had only just transferred into astronomy last week to meet his required number of base periods and had spent the past lessons hunched over his notes, scrawling down everything Professor Shirogane was saying and trying very hard not to appear as clueless as he actually was (It probably wasn’t working).

 

_ Look up star map configuration. Read up on Europa and Io. Find  _ _ smart(!!) _ _ arguments to defend Pluto against heathens. _

 

Those and a plethora of similar annotations, speckled with ink stains and blue fingerprints ─ because after all those years Lance would still rather just use a goddamn ballpoint pen ─ were crammed into the margins of his notes. 

 

The boy didn’t look up when Lance sat down next to him. He seemed pretty focused on the book he was reading ─  _ Vanurian - Lover of Stars ─  _ so Lance didn’t say anything. He had heard the words  _ shut up  _ one too many times today to risk hearing them again. Tomorrow yes, tomorrow he would be okay again but today just wasn’t an option.

 

Silence settled between them as the rest of the astronomy tower seRved as a usual backdrop of chatter among students, the rustle of parchment and the scrapping of chairs against stone. Lance took out his thermos, the only artefact of his muggle upbringing that he left his dorm with. The rest roused too many questions and brought with it a sense of otherness he didn’t want to deal with. 

 

He sighed at the rich deep taste of coffee spreading in his mouth. He would regret it later, when he would find himself in bed tossing and turning because the caffeine wouldn’t wear off But his drooping eyes demanded it to stay open, so Future Lance would have to deal with that later.

 

“What’s that smell?” The boy turned his head and raised one of his angular eyebrows at him. Lance startled at the question and spilt his coffee down the front of his shirt. He hissed out a curse when the burning coffee hit his chest and pain erupted across his skin. 

 

The boy next to him scrambled to get his wand out. “Scourgify!” His wand moved in a precise jabbing motion that Lance still couldn’t quite get right on bad things and the stains vanished from his white shirt. His wand moved again, in a fluid and slow motion and the pain on his skin vanished as abruptly as it had first appeared.

 

“I’m sorry,” the boy shot him an apologetic look. But Lance just blinked at him for a moment, eyes drifting over his black tousled curls that seemed to swallow all light surrounding them and over his fine drawn facial features that softened his hard jawline. 

“It’s fine,” Lance murmured, melting at the lingering tingle of the boys magic on his chest.

 

Then he caught himself. “Thank you. For the cleaning charm.” He gestured uselessly at his chest as he stumbled over his words. Then he let his hand flop back into his lap.

 

“Wait, aren’t you the guy who got into a fight with Iverson today?” Keith’s eyes, an unnatural purple Lance would just  _ have to  _ see in natural lighting, widened in recognition. 

 

Lance winced. “I already have a reputation. Great.” He looked down at the empty parchment on the table in front of him. “You’re wrong though. I’m the guy he yelled at for ten minutes straight. You can only call it fighting if I actually yell back.” The corners of Lance’s mouth quirked at that but he didn’t have to see the smile to know that it wasn’t right. It sat on his face like a misspelt word, a sense of  _ something isn’t right here  _ given shape and form.

 

“I shouldn’t have said that I’m sorry.” It was the remorse, the  _ true  _ remorse, in the boy’s voice that made him lift his head to look at him.

“What? It’s the truth, you shouldn’t apologise for saying it.” Lance bit his tongue when he heard how bitter he sounded.

 

“You’re still a person and not just a rumour to be passed around in corridors.” Lance’s eyes widened at that. “So let me try this again, I’m Keith.” Keith shot him a small smile, one that Lance found himself answering with one of his own almost immediately.

 

“The name’s Lance, nice to meet you.”

  
  


ii.

 

Over the next weeks, Lance found himself smiling at Keith whenever he passed him in hallways ─ a brief eye contact, too short, way too short, to justify the hammering of his heart, and a pair smile like a shared secret, something just for the two of them. 

 

He prepared his astronomy course materials Tuesday morning, while his other course materials lied such as his potions textbook would end up in assorted piles across their dormitory. All of them would stay in those piles to while every Tuesday morning, without fail, there would be a neat pile, consisting of a star map, parchment, a textbook and his freshly cleaned but still empty thermos, sitting on his desk

 

Even Pidge and Hunk picked up on it. “ _ You, so  _ eager to get back to astronomy?” Pidge raised her brows in question but shot him a grin like she already knew the answer.

“What happened to  _ I’m failing, this is the worst?” _ Hunk chimed in, leaning over to bump his shoulder against Lance, his smile a mirror of Pidge’s.

 

Lance stumbled but managed to catch himself before he faceplanted in the grass. He huffed out a breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s still the worst and I’m still failing.”

 

Pidge’s grin widened. “Then why are you walking so fast?” Lance opened his mouth to protest but found himself with nothing worthy of being called the truth. His steps came to a halt, almost at the gates to the caste and he looked down at his watch.  _ Five minutes.  _ The entire walk from the greenhouse back to that castle normally took them twice as long, on a good day. 

 

Both Pidge and Hunk shot him a triumphant grin, gloating with the sense of a won argument. Lance scowled at the inevitable teasing already building behind their foreheads.

“What changed?” Pidge leaned forward as if they were conspiring, snickering marauders up for nothing but mischief and jokes. In some way, they actually were, with Lance being the punchline for all of them.

 

Hunk, as tall and wide a the Whomping Willow, smirked at him and singsonged, “Is it a pretty girl?” 

Pidge joined him. “Or a boy?”

 

Lance blushed at that. “You two, shut up! I’m not talking to any of you.” He shot around and yelled the words over his shoulder. His steps elongated even further to bring greater distance between them but that didn’t stop their snickering.

 

He only slowed when he reached the astronomy tower and perked up when he saw Keith at their familiar table, his bag on Lance’s chair to ward off anyone even thinking of taking his place. He answered Keith’s small smile with a wide one ─ a  _ way  _ too wide ─ of his own and sat down next to him.

 

The bumped elbows and shared a grin as if they just passed a joke only the two of them would understand and Lance felt the heat from earlier return to his cheeks.

 

_ Maybe it is a pretty boy. _

  
  


iii.

 

Oh, it was definitely a pretty boy and Lance was so,  _ so  _ gone.

 

Astronomy lessons had started to be his favourite despite him barely passing the class. Lance threw himself into his chair and bumped his shoulder into Keith’s.

“How’s my favourite mullet doing today?” Keith scowled at him when he heard the nickname but Lance shot him a blinding smile. 

 

“I won’t apologise for your hairstyle, no matter what you do,” Keith’s scowl deepened but Lance’s smile didn’t even falter. The set of Keith’s eyebrows wasn’t low enough and the lines around his mouth not deep enough for him to actually be angry. He wouldn’t dwell on why he knew that.

 

Lance held onto his grin, that had turned sincere somewhere along the way, and didn’t lower his eyes. Their eye contact dragged on and Lance sank deeper and deeper into Keith’s eyes. It was somehow fitting that an admirer of the universe would have eyes that contained the universe itself. 

 

Then Keith broke out in laughter ─  _ actual  _ laughter, not a snicker, not a chuckle─ and Lance’s world stopped spinning.

 

“You’re an idiot, an actual idiot,” Keith wheezed out in bouts of laughter but Lance just stared at him like he had created the universe itself.

 

The entirety of his brain was blank, swept clean so that his next thought could take up the space it deserved. His laugh was breathtaking.

 

_ No,  _ Keith  _ was breathtaking. _

  
  


iv.

 

Small realisations began to litter his day. They were unexpected, striking at all kinds of moments and entirely too much for Lance’s heart.  _ Keith is beautiful. Oh, Keith looks like a star when the sun is shining. Keith likes it when I make jokes even if he doesn’t say so. Keith is actually really touchy. _

_ Keith is─  _

_ Keith thinks─  _

_ Keith likes─  _

 

He was a newly created universe that had found a sun to be its centre. It made it oddly fitting that his feelings behaved like the actual universe and just

spread,

spread,

spread.

  
  


v.

 

Lance should have known that containing his feelings for Keith ─ he refused to call them love, calling them by their proper name would only give them more power ─ would be like counting all of the stars in the night sky: Impossible.

 

“Tell me the myth of Vanurian the Lover of Stars again.” Keith rolled over until he was facing Lance, his eyes widened in an almost manic gleam. 

“You already know that story,” Lance answered, “Me telling it won’t make it a different one.”

 

He rolled over and set his eyes to the stars. He would start telling the tale, the moment he looked at Keith. He had this effect on him and Lance was still working on fixing it.

 

“It lies in the way you tell the story,” Keith said his voice low. Lance frowned at the way he said it. It sounded a response drafted and thought about, not one coming from Keith. So Lance did the only reasonable thing: He pried. 

 

“How do I tell it?”

 

For a moment there was nothing but silence, then, “You tell the story as if you can feel it,” Keith said finally and Lance’s chest expanded, “As if it wasn't Vanurian’s pain but yours.”

 

Keith huffed out a breath, like he had just performed a really great task. Lance rolled over to face him only to find that Keith’s eyes were already on him, boring into him, unravelling him at the seams. Lance felt an answer tingle at the back of his throat, words that have been sitting on his chest for weeks.

 

He opened his mouth but hesitated. Keith leaned forward, full attention on him as if to say  _ go on.  _ Lance swallowed and decided, for once, with only the star to witness his acts, he would be brave. “It’s because I do. I know what it feels like to love someone you can’t have.”

 

The words came out as a whisper, he couldn’t manage more but rang through the silence between them as if he had yelled them, at the top of his lungs.

 

Keith reached out to lace their fingers together, a thing they did often but felt like it was much more than just that. “Maybe you don’t have to feel that way.” Keith said and Lance gasped.

Did he mean?

 

Keith opened and closed his mouth and Lance held his breath, as fear and hope started a fierce battle in his mind. “Maybe your love doesn’t have to be in vain.”

 

Lance shot forward and brought their lips together, instead of answering. Their lips moved together and his rushed as if forever caught in a fall. He put his hands on Keith’s cheeks and deepened the kiss. It was only after their necks started cramping and all air evaded them that they broke the it. 

Lance smiled at Keith, who was just as giddy when he smiled back.

“Yeah, maybe it doesn’t have to.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> hey you've made it! I know I'm a day late but hey, I managed to finish this!! I'm so happy to have this one over because it's just meh, not y favourite. But that's okay!! There's a new day and a new prompt for me to work on.
> 
> If you liked it (or even if you didn't, that's okay) feel free to tell me in a review or come yell at me on twitter: [@cxnfiscated](https://twitter.com/cxnfiscated).
> 
> Thanks for reading!! Bye!


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